


How Apollo Took On Dionysus, And Lost (or the futility of denying the obvious)

by elzed



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-14
Updated: 2008-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:20:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elzed/pseuds/elzed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set both pre-mini and mid-season 2</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Apollo Took On Dionysus, And Lost (or the futility of denying the obvious)

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by overnighter; with help from bob_radar and helen_c on canon consistency.

“One more thing, Apollo.”

“Sir?”

“You’re not going to like this.” Colonel Ladenis looked up from his desk at Lee and tapped his pen on the polished mahogany table. “I have a new recruit for your squadron.”

Lee raised an eyebrow. The old man was being more than usually cryptic. It didn’t sound promising.

“Why won’t I like it, sir?”

The colonel eyeballed him for a long moment, long enough to make even a cocky Viper pilot drop his gaze.

“Because it’s a third-class cadet, ensign.”

“ _Sir_?”

Second years barely got to _see_ Vipers, let alone pilot them. The mere suggestion that one of them would fly with his squadron, the elite of the senior class, was absurd. Not to mention frakked up.

“You heard me. She’s off the pilot aptitude charts; she’s put in more sim hours than the rest of her class combined and yes, she’s flown an actual Viper. She has the chops for it. Don’t look at me like that, Apollo, _you_ were only a third class when you first strapped into the cockpit.”

“I didn’t fly with the senior cadet wing then, _sir_.”

The colonel smiled thinly.

“Cadet Thrace has more raw talent than I’ve seen at the academy since _you_ walked in, Lee – and she might well top you someday. She’s ripe for some proper flying, and I think you’ll agree with me once you’ve seen her in action.”

“Cadet Thrace?”

Lee racked his brains but he couldn’t summon a face to match the name. Then again, there were two hundred cadets in her year and he couldn’t be expected to remember every one.

“Starbuck,” the colonel added, and Lee suddenly got a visual: shaggy blonde mop, too-wide mouth, insolent eyes and a matching swagger; not to mention a reputation for hell-raising second to none. Yes, he knew who _she_ was. His jaw dropped.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! Sir.”

“If you’ve heard of her, you must have heard of her pilot stats.” Ladenis reached for his cigar box and selected a thin one. He rolled it between his fingers slowly and raised it to his ear, listening for the telltale crackle of dry tobacco.

“I heard she was good, but…”

But not _this_ good, Lee wanted to add. Not good enough to blot out a disciplinary record infamous even among the seniors. Since she’d started last year, Starbuck had made her name as the perpetrator of outrageous stunts which regularly landed her in the brig. Her specialty was embarrassing – and sometimes downright humiliating – senior members of the staff. The prank she’d pulled on Major Stevensen – a notorious old goat – last Bacchanalia was already Academy legend.

“Have a look at this.”

The colonel handed him a thin blue file with Thrace’s name printed across the front. Lee skimmed through the first couple of pages of – undeniably impressive – flight stats and found himself staring at terse but glowing prose. _‘Flies like she was born to it’. ‘Astounding airborne control’. ‘Deserves to be given a bird and let loose in the sky’_ – that last one from the usually tight-lipped Major Espinoza, who’d trained several generations of nuggets before Lee even stepped through the Academy doors, and never spared her criticism.

He handed the file back with a sigh. Against that kind of combined offense, there wasn’t much he could do but bow down and accept the inevitable.

“Do me a favor, Lee. Fly with her, and then come and complain to me if you don’t think she can handle it. But give her a chance. Dismissed,” the colonel said, nodding towards the door before reaching for the brass lighter on his desk.

Lee saluted and walked out, torn between annoyance at the thought of babysitting a nugget on his squadron, and curiosity as to the extent of Starbuck’s reported flying prowess.

He wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news to his pilots.

*********************

There’s a godsawful ringing in Lee’s head when he cuts off the power to the Viper, which he managed – against the odds – to land on a large asteroid with enough faint gravity and ferrous metal in its core to use the boarding magnets. He leans his helmet carefully against the back of his seat and allows himself the luxury of a few deep breaths. He’s aching all over – he suspects he might have a cracked rib; that last hit jarred him to the bone.

Frak. That was close. Closer than he’s ever wanted to play it, so close that he’s still surprised he dodged death out there in the firefight, with one engine down and a warped wing.

Now all he can do is wait for the toasters to frak off, and hope he’ll still have oxygen when the rescue Raptors come looking for him.

If they come looking for him.

If they don’t lose the fight and jump out.

_“If it were you, we’d never leave.”_

He hopes his father’s words still ring true, or true enough that _Galactica_ won’t leave without at least checking to see if he’s still alive. He knows Kara won’t let them go, and if anyone can find him, she can. He holds on to the thought as he surveys his surroundings.

There’s nothing around him except a desolate landscape of uneven rock, with a horizon that terminates abruptly in the inky darkness of space. Above him the scattered asteroids spin and tumble, alternately blocking and reflecting the sun’s light, and Lee can make out bursts of light in the distance, the only indication of the bitter fight waged in the system.

He’s stranded here, but probably safe from detection, for now. His Viper won’t show on the enemy’s DRADIS on this lump of metallic rock – which, of course, rules out turning on the emergency beacon, too. And any chance of _Galactica_ finding him until the Cylons leave and he can risk revealing his hiding place.

The Viper’s main comm is dead – probably fried when he took the direct hit that warped his wing. His weaker helmet communicator’s still working, but with the ambient distortion from the asteroid field, all he gets is a burst of static when he tries switching it on. The ship is unlikely to fly again, unless a Raptor can tow her back to _Galactica_ , and he can imagine how Tyrol will react when he sees what Lee’s done to his Mark VII. On the plus side, the ship’s backup oxygen supplies are untouched.

Of course, that might just mean a slow, drawn-out death.

 

**********************

Kara’s blown at least three Raiders to smithereens in the last forty minutes in her desperate search for Lee. Since his comm shorted and his bird vanished from her DRADIS and her visual. She’s ready to bet that he’s hiding somewhere in the massive asteroid field their dogfight keeps weaving in and out of, probably a little out of reach, and that he’s playing dead. Or maybe he’s really dead and she just missed the explosion.

Not frakking likely.

“Starbuck! Bogey on your tail! Hang on – I’ve got it in my kill zone!”

Kat’s voice crackles through her headset, and Kara banks left and flips her bird end to end, adding her cannon fire to Kat’s. Four.

Frak, she’s got to stop thinking about Lee or she’s going to get herself killed.

She pulls herself back into focus, scouts her DRADIS for incoming Raiders and plots a course for maximum intercept. She can’t find Lee now, but she can send a few more Cylons to toaster hell, or whatever halfway stage they exist in before being downloaded and reborn. She wonders idly whether the Raider she flew to Caprica was ever reborn, and whether he – she, whatever – is out there looking for her…

Truth be told, she doesn’t give a shit.

What she does care about is the pair of Raiders gracefully crisscrossing in front of her Viper, shooting their cannons at what looks to be Hotdog’s ship, engaged in evasive maneuvers. They make perfect targets for her displaced frustration, and she dispatches one efficiently before Hotdog joins her to terminate the other.

“Thanks for saving my ass, Starbuck! These frakkers wouldn’t let go.”

“No sweat, Hotdog.”

The kill has barely dulled the rage that has been building up as a counterpart to her helplessness. She knows she can’t do anything now but destroy Cylons, attack them relentlessly until they give up and leave the system, clearing the way for recon missions to recover lost pilots.

She fears it’s already too late.

Hotdog’s already targeted another Raider to bring down, and she briefly watches the two ships dance ahead of her before finding her next prey. Her fuel reserves are down to the last quarter, but she can make a few kills before flying back to base. She switches her comm to long-range.

“Starbuck to _Galactica_ ; checking in. How’s the attack on the basestar doing?”

“Starbuck, this is _Galactica_ actual”

“Sir.”

“The basestar’s fire capacity is severely reduced; we anticipate either complete destruction or withdrawal. What about your status?”

“Six Raiders destroyed since last update; cleaning up this sector with Kat, Hotdog, Sniper and Ninja; requesting permission to continue.”

“Permission granted, Starbuck. Good hunting.”

“Thank you, sir. Starbuck out.”

She can’t ask, doesn’t need to. Knows he would have told her anything he knew.

So she just takes a deep breath, checks her instruments and studies her DRADIS to get the measure of the remaining Raiders. She spots Kat and Ninja zooming in on a couple that just emerged from the fringes of the asteroid field and banks towards them, full throttle. Mind clear and focused on the hunt – senses alert, finger on the trigger.

Somewhere in the back of that honed mind, a memory surfaces of her first encounter with Lee, and Kara has to fight to suppress it.

Later. Later will be time enough.

 

**************************

 

“Cadet Thrace reporting for duty, sir.”

Lee looked up from his flight manual, surprised. He hadn’t expected her to show up so soon – let alone to find her standing at attention in front of him in the squadron leaders’ small office, suited up and ready to climb into the first Viper available.

“At ease, cadet.”

Starbuck relaxed, hands behind her back, and grinned at him. Lee found himself grinning back without even thinking about it. She was prettier than he remembered, which he certainly didn’t object to, and he wondered idly whether she was as easy to bed as her reputation proclaimed.

Except that this wasn’t at all the point of her presence here. He dismissed the thought.

“So you think you’re ready to fly with the big boys?” he inquired, nodding to the vacant seat opposite his.

“The colonel seems to think so, sir,” she said as she took the chair and spun it around before straddling it. She clearly had attitude in spades, but then Lee was used to dealing with fellow Viper pilots, and they all thought they were the gods’ gift to mankind.

“Yes, I got that message,” he replied drily. “What do _you_ think?”

“I think you should give me a bird and let me show you rather than trying to get me to brag. I’ve always been better with actions than words.” There was definitely the hint of a leer there, and Lee’s mind wandered again towards the inappropriate.

“That’s fighting talk, cadet.”

“If that’s what it takes to get into the cockpit, I’m ready and willing,” she smirked and he caught himself staring at her mouth just a fraction of a second too long. She noticed and her smirk broadened.

“Takes more than attitude to fly a Viper.”

“I believe you’ve seen my flight record, sir? I can back it up, as soon as you let me show you.”

Lee chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully and got up, tossing the manual into a desk drawer. “Tell you what, Starbuck, let’s start with a spin in the sims before I let you lose with the real thing. I know you come with great recs but this is _my_ squadron. Indulge me.”

Her eyes flashed with something very like annoyance, but she inclined her head.

“Aye-aye, sir.”

They made their way through the corridors of the Flight School towards the hangars that housed the simulators. The Fleet Academy sim pods were cutting-edge technology – the closest a pilot could come to flying a live Viper without leaving the ground, and accurate enough that that pilots on active duty came to use them for practice when they were downplanet. Lee detoured by his locker to pick up his flight suit; while it wasn’t essential in the pods, it was useful when they ran high G-force simulations, and he certainly intended to give Starbuck a tough ride.

“So how does it feel to be whizzed past your fellow cadets and thrown in with the seniors?” he asked as they entered the training area.

“You should know, sir. Didn’t you get to skip a grade or two when you were third-class?”

He shot her a look but she kept a straight face to match the mock innocence in her tone. _Touché_.

“Besides,” she added, “surely I should be asking _you_ how it feels to get some uppity nugget parachuted into your elite flight team?”

“I’ll reserve my judgment for when we come out of these,” he said, pointing to the Viper simulators in front of them. The dull gray boxes overshadowed the rest of the equipment in the hangar.

“Mano a mano, sir?” she asked, a challenge dancing in her eyes. Lee snorted. Pilot cockiness was all well and good, but he was beginning to think his new recruit was biting off more than she could chew, and didn’t seem to realize.

“Start by following me. If you keep up, we can try a little one-on-one. But I wouldn’t get too excited. Oh, and if we’re going to fly together, you can call me Apollo.”

“Roger that, Apollo.”

Lee shrugged off his uniform jacket and hung it next to the stairs leading up to the sim pods. As he bent down to pull the legs of his flightsuit over his pants, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that Starbuck was ogling his ass. He resisted the temptation to look, but when he turned around to fasten the suit, she was smirking. Again.

“Okay Starbuck, let’s see how long you can keep this smile on your face.”

Usually, he started his sim runs with a warm-up, a little low-G-force amble through the skies to get the feel of the controls before moving a gear up into kickass mode; but he had no intention of easing her into this. As he strapped himself into the cockpit, he felt slightly lightheaded, and more than a little aggressive. There was something about Starbuck that brought out his competitive edge, made him want to fight. Or maybe frak, but right now he preferred to ignore _that_ and focus on the fighting.

He slipped on the helmet, punched in the sequence for a hard takeoff – straight out of a battlestar’s launch tubes into deep space – and checked his instruments. Everything was reading clear: fuel, oxygen and ammo at full capacity; all the indicators on his panel glowing green, and for a second he let himself believe this was the real thing.

“Ready, Starbuck?”

“On your mark, Apollo.”

He initiated the sim, and briefly wondered whether he should have warned her about the launch. As the artificial G-force kicked in and the screen in front of him resolved into a remarkable facsimile of a Mercury Class battlestar’s main launch tubes, he heard an excited whoop in his helmet.

“Oh yeah! Any Raiders waiting for us out there?”

“Just follow me, and worry about the Cylons later.”

The abrupt start didn’t seem to faze her at all, and she tagged seamlessly after him as they emerged from the tubes into space. Determined to put her through her paces, Lee swooped in a tight arc, spun his ship around and shot off in the opposite direction. To his surprise, Starbuck didn’t just follow him but kept her distance perfectly.

 _Huh_.

He started with a few routine patterns, banking left, then right and circling the battlestar, increasing the complexity of the maneuvers to see if she’d drop behind, until he found himself performing spins and spiral twists that he knew for a fact she couldn’t have been taught at this stage. Still she was on his tail, and showing no sign of flagging. She hadn’t said a word to him on the comm, either.

Lee eased off and slowed down, guiding his ship into a long ellipse around the battlestar.  
“Okay, ‘fess up. Have you been practicing combat maneuvers in the sims behind your instructor’s back?”

Her laugh echoed through his head. “What makes you think I had to do it in secret?”

“So you _have_ come across the Vertical Spindle and the Reynhardt Tailspin before?”

“Honest? Yes. But some of the moves you pulled on me I hadn’t seen before.” She paused. “You fly these sims better than anyone I’ve flown with, too. More… I don’t know, elegant?”

Here he was, trying to compliment her on her flying, and she was turning the tables on him. Her arrogance would’ve been irritating, except for the genuine note of respect in her voice, which hadn’t been there before.

Grudgingly, Lee accepted that perhaps Starbuck deserved all the hype.

“You’re not all that bad yourself.”

Her cackle came through again.

“Thank you, Apollo.”

“Wanna blow a few toasters up? See how you handle a Viper under fire?”

“Oh, please!”

As it turned out, Starbuck was pretty good under fire, too, and what she lacked in technical skills she more than made up in sheer audacity. Eventually one of her daredevil tricks backfired and her she had to eject – terminating the sim – but not before she’d shot down two Raiders.

“Artemis, Starbuck, if you’re that reckless at the controls of a Viper I’m not letting you near one of my birds,” Lee swore as he hoisted himself out of the simulator, but the admiring tone in his voice betrayed him. The girl had raw talent in spades all right.

“Apollo, if you take all your nuggets through this kind of workout, I’m amazed any of them want to step into one of your birds,” she shot back, pulling her helmet off, but the huge grin on her face gave her away.

“You’re a good shot,” he remarked at the bottom of the stairs.

“Best in my year.”

It figured.

“You should enter the Academy sharpshooter contest.”

He peeled off his flightsuit and let it dangle from his waist. She did the same, revealing leanly muscled arms and what in Lee’s opinion looked like a very nice pair of breasts molded into regulation tanks, before he batted the thought away.

“So should you, Apollo. Or is it sir outside the cockpit?” she replied, letting her eyes linger on his exposed arms and shoulders. Lee knew he was in good shape – he was vain enough to care, and to enjoy the resulting stares from some of his female (and occasionally male) comrades – but Starbuck’s frank appraisal wasn’t so much tickling his vanity as awakening his arousal.

He was going to have to watch this one. And watch himself.

 

*******************

 

When the basestar blows up and flickers off the DRADIS, there’s a deafening cheer in Kara’s helmet. It’s almost as good as seeing the remaining Raiders scattering in disarray before pursuing Vipers. She’d give chase but she’s killed a dozen toasters already, and she’s close to bingo fuel.

Besides, she wants to put the remnant of her tylium to better use.

“ _Galactica_ , this is Starbuck. Permission to scout for Apollo’s ship in the asteroid field?” she calls out.

Dee’s voice replies, crisp.

“The commander has already launched a couple of rescue Raptors, Starbuck – you’d better head back to base before you run out of fuel.”

“Come on, Dee, tell him I have a hunch. I promise I won’t run out of juice.”

There’s no way the commander’s going to say no when they’ve just had one of their best days on the battlefield, and when she’s offering to track his son.

“Go ahead, Starbuck. Find him.”

She’s already wending her way past random lumps of rock, bobbing and weaving to avoid barreling into the larger asteroids while trying to get a reading on her DRADIS through all the interference. There’s a crackle and a whine in her headset, not enough to drown out incoming calls, but easily enough to dwarf a damaged comm.

Still, he can probably hear. If he’s still able to listen…

“Come on, Lee, show yourself,” she broadcasts in the void. “Cylons are gone, time to turn on the distress beacon.”

Nothing.

The asteroids are larger and closer together – there must be some spectacular crashes now and then – towards the center of the field, requiring particularly delicate flying, which, in Kara’s opinion, makes it all the likelier as a hiding place for a damaged Viper. Because if there is one thing she _does_ know, it’s that at some point Lee’s bird took a massive hit. The kind of hit that most pilots might not survive; and even fewer could handle well enough to try landing a Viper in _this_.

Lee is one of them.

There are a few asteroids large enough for a ship to land on, and she circles every one of them, relying on mark one eyeball for her recon.

The distress beacon kicks in just when she’s looped around the eighth empty rock. It’s close enough to make it on what she has left in the tank, and as she gets near she can hear Lee’s voice, tinny, in her ear.

“Is that you, Starbuck? ‘Cause this doesn’t look like a Raptor to me.”

“Lee, you frakking sonofabitch!” she whoops. “Hang on – _Galactica_ , do you read?”

“Copy that, Starbuck, we’ve sent your position to the rescue teams.”

Kara smiles down at him – she can just see him in the cockpit of his Viper, marooned on his asteroid, waving at her. “So, you okay down there? Do you need a medic in the Raptor?”

“I’m fine. But it would be nice if we could get my Mark VII off this misshapen lump of rock.” Gods, he sounds normal, relaxed, even.

“Roger that, Apollo, I’ll send a tow truck. Got to head back before I run dry. Cavalry’s on its way.”

She flies home on near enough bingo fuel, heady with excitement and happiness, and all she can think of is that when she sees him stepping out of his bird she’s going to grab him and kiss him.

Well, maybe she’ll wait until they leave the hangar and its crowd of knuckledraggers. But she’s had it with pretending they’re just friends.

They’re not. They never were, really.

 

****************

As it turned out, Lee’s concerns about how Starbuck would fit into the senior wing were baseless. Whatever wariness there was at first was dispelled when she first flew with them, proving that she was as good in an actual Viper as she promised in the sims. Distrust mutated into respect pretty damn quick.

Although she only joined the seniors for flight training and practice – she still took most of her theoretical courses with the second year – she also started socializing with some of the pilots, demonstrating that on that front too, she lived up to her reputation. And then some.

The first time Lee had to spring her out of hack was his wake-up call.

“Ensign Lee Adama. I’m here to release cadet Kara Thrace from custody. She’s required for flight training.”

The guard looked up at him, bored, and waved at a registry on his desk.

“Cell Two. Sign her off here.”

“What’s she even in for?”

The guard pointed at the book. “See for yourself.”

It was a run of the mill punch-up in a bar; she and a couple of other pilots had been cautioned for being drunk and disorderly, but by the look of it she’d lost her cool and started arguing with the military sergeant – hence her night in hack. There were also references to past arrests, and leafing through the book, Lee spotted a few of them.

Kara Thrace certainly had a track record here.

Lee signed off his name next to her latest transgression and headed for the locked gate. It clicked open ahead of him with an ominous sound. In three and a half years, he’d only seen the inside of a cell once, after a particularly festive night in his first year. He had no wish to repeat the experience.

Down a dingy corridor were a handful of holding cells, run by the Academy’s own Military Police. Starbuck was probably familiar with all of them.

She was lying on her back on the concrete floor, doing slow ab reps, and for some reason Lee could barely tear his eyes away from the small strip of skin revealed between her tanks and her waistband. He blinked and shook his head before she caught him staring, and leaned against the bars, squinting at her in the harsh glare of the prison lights.

“Thrace.”

She smirked at him but didn’t break rhythm.

“Sir.”

“So, cadet. Should I get used to this?”

“Depends how soon you get bored of bailing me out, sir.”

“I’m already bored. Get your stuff and come with me.”

She knew enough to shut up and obey him until he’d led her out of the cell block. Outside she turned to him with a contrite look that he was positive was just for his benefit.

“Thank you, sir. Sorry about…”

“Just don’t do this again. I won’t be there next time.”

But he was, and the time after that, too. By then they had become more than fellow pilots, and he couldn’t turn her down when she called for him to sign her out after a night in the slammer. Once or twice, he even joined her there, because he couldn’t stand next to her in a brawl without lending a hand, regulations be damned.  
On a healthier note, he also took to running with her a couple of times a week. She was a fine athlete, and they paced each other well in the hills around Delos early in the morning before flight practice, racing each other uphill in a test of endurance.

Starbuck, it emerged, was also a near-pro-level pyramid player, as Lee found out to his cost one afternoon when he saw her and a fellow second year throwing passes at each other on one of the pyramid courts.

"Can anyone join in or is this a private party?" he asked. The other cadet – a lanky guy answering to the callsign Helo – welcomed him with a slap on the back.

"Think you have the chops for it?"

"Sure."

Lee shrugged. He knew he could handle himself pretty well on the pyramid court.

Helo threw him a curve ball, which Lee caught easily and sent back. They made a few quick passes at each other, then Starbuck stepped in.

"Two on one, guys – give me the ball and try to stop me," she challenged. He should have taken more notice of the grin on her face.

The first time she slipped past his defense to score, Lee blamed himself. The second time, he figured she'd been lucky. The third time she feinted him and evaded his block and Helo's lunge before dunking the ball at close range, he realized something was up.

"Don't tell me you had no idea Kara was semi-pro? She was on a pyramid scholarship," Helo said, laughing at Lee's discomfited face. "You're lucky she didn't bet money on it."

"Like you'd have let me," Starbuck said. "You always rat me out before I've had my fun. Besides, I'll have you remember I blew my knee and am now virtually an invalid – you guys just suck."

She looked so carefree, bouncing on the balls of her feet with barely-suppressed energy as she laughed at them; blond hair blowing in the light breeze from the hills, the fine sheen of sweat on her skin glistening in the evening sun; it made Lee ache.

Not for the first time, he had a craving to taste her skin, to lick the salt from the hollow of her neck, the small of her back, the valley between her breasts. It bothered him, slightly, how often she had started to feature in his erotic daydreams, how easily his mind wandered in that direction. Not least on lonely nights when he sought relief, and visions of her pert breasts, her generous mouth, the curve of her ass crowded his mind as he stroked himself urgently to orgasm.

Eventually he would have to deal with it, he knew, but he kept ignoring it. Until the crunch came, and then he was powerless to resist.

*****************************

 

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Lee asked, wincing at the sight of the half-full bottle of Picon Firewhiskey flanked with empty beers on Starbuck’s table. She looked at him with a wicked smile and shrugged. On her left, Bonehead was slumped face down, belying his reputation as the hardcore drinker of the senior cadet wing. His fingers were still loosely wrapped around a shot glass. On her right, Helo was busy exploring the tonsils of a curly-haired girl wearing Raptor patches on her uniform. The last occupant of the table, a stocky third year whose face was vaguely familiar, stood up abruptly as Lee approached and weaved his way unsteadily towards the head, one hand hovering around his mouth. 

“Keep it in, Pirate,” Starbuck called after him, raising her glass at the departing cadet and draining it in one go. 

She grinned at Lee. 

“So, Apollo, late to the party as usual… Care to join us in a spot of debauchery? Actually, when I say us, I think I mean me – I fear Bonehead and Pirate have reached their limit; and as to those two…” she pointed her thumb at Helo whose hand was delving with renewed vigor under his companion’s tanks, “they need to _get a room_ right now or I might have to pour some water over them.”

“Frak you,” Helo mumbled, flipping her the finger with his free hand.

Lee hesitated for a second, and took the chair vacated by the nauseated Pirate. 

“Raptor pilots – no sense of decorum,” he said. “Hit me, Starbuck.” 

He pushed the cleanest-looking shot glass towards her, watched as she filled it to the brim, and drank it in one long swallow. Picon Firewhiskey was a weakness of his – one he rarely indulged in, except when Starbuck egged him on, but he had every intention of getting as drunk as he could in as short a time as possible tonight. 

The three nights of Bacchanalia were a welcome occasion for drunkenness and debauchery at the Academy, with the added advantage of official recognition. Early lectures and flight training had been canceled for the next three days, and everyone would have the opportunity to wander around in a haze of hangovers and post-coital euphoria (if they got that lucky). Even Starbuck would find it hard to get thrown in hack tonight.

Also, Lee intended to get laid if he possibly could, because it had been too long since he’d had more than his own right hand and some reprehensible fantasies about a certain cocky and insubordinate pilot in his squadron to assuage his frustration. 

Of course, drinking shots with said pilot wasn’t, perhaps, the ideal way to start the evening. He scanned the crowd around him swiftly. The bar, an old favorite with Fleet personnel since his father’s Academy days, was heaving with a mixture of cadets, pilots – most of them military but with a smattering of civilians thrown in – and a random assortment of pilot groupies, would-be jocks and local lowlifes. 

The dull, yellow light over the bar cast a slightly threatening glow over the men and women jostling for position and the barman’s attention. Lee caught the gaze of a scantily-clad brunette, all pneumatic breasts and pouty lips, who looked him up and down before flashing very white and distinctly carnivorous teeth in a come-hither grin. The light gave her a sallow, unhealthy cast, and Lee turned away. This wasn’t what he was after. At all. 

“Seriously, Apollo, what took you so long? I was beginning to think you’d jumped ship and decided to go somewhere else,” Starbuck asked him as she refilled his glass and signaled to the barmaid for another couple of beer chasers.

“Just finishing off some evals.”

“Gods, man, don’t tell me you were doing paperwork tonight of all nights! You really have no life.”

“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” he challenged, looking her in the eye. 

“Uh-huh. But you have a lot of catching up to do, so you better get started.”

She pushed another full shot glass towards him, following it with a fresh beer. 

Lee downed both of them straight, not breaking eye contact. 

“Got any more where these came from?”

He was feeling reckless and thirsty, so he downed the next two shots and their chasers, with equal aplomb. While he wasn’t exactly a lightweight, drinking heavily was something he’d abandoned as he rose in the Academy ranks. A squadron leader in the senior cadet wing didn’t get trashed at the end of every week. Especially not when he was widely expected to make valedictorian of his class. 

Or chief brown noser, as Starbuck would say when she teased Lee about the size of the stick up his ass. 

But tonight was different – it was Bacchanalia, and he was going to get well and truly drunk. Hades, as long as it meant blacking out and waking up in some strange woman’s bed, he was up for it. He just hoped he’d remember enough tomorrow to fuel some alternative fantasies to the ones currently featuring a topless Starbuck and her invitingly hot, wide mouth, because when he was sitting across from her, the sight of those lips alone were enough to give him a hard-on. 

“So, Ensign Adama, do _you_ let your hair down at Bacchanalia?” Starbuck drawled at him with what he was sure was a hint of salaciousness.

“Sure I do, cadet. Care to join me?” 

He raised his just-replenished glass at her and brought it to his lips, letting the edge drag along his lip before pouring it down his throat, relishing the slow afterburn. When he caught sight of her eyes, trained on his mouth with eager attention, he felt his cock stiffen. She looked like she _wanted_ him, and he sure as Hades wanted _her_.

“Hey, I invited you first,” she shot back and, with her gaze focused on his, she took her beer bottle in hand and wrapped her lips around it in a move that could only be described as obscene. Lee became hard as rock. 

Next to Starbuck, Helo shifted and pulled the girl he was groping into his lap. She straddled him with a moan, and Lee decided it was time to go, before he caught the hormone-fuelled mood and started pawing his star pilot, more than likely earning a punch for his trouble. 

“Let’s get another bottle of whiskey and hit the road, Starbuck,” he slurred, suddenly aware of how drunk he was. Oh, it was foolish, and he was going to regret it, but she fired him up like no other woman, and his will to resist was ebbing rapidly. 

“Is that your idea of a smooth move, Apollo?” she said with a grin. “Because I have to tell you, the booze is a nice touch.”

“I aim to please.”

“Oh you do? Because I might just take you up on that.”

“Be my guest,” Lee said, tucking his wallet into his pants and handing her the bottle that the barmaid had brought. Starbuck seized it with glee and stood up. 

“So where shall we go, pilot?”

“Anywhere you want to take me.” 

The reckless mood was taking over entirely, and he was willing to follow her where she led, in search of sensual excess.

As they left he made sure he grabbed his jacket and the other bottle, drinking deep before they stepped out of the front door. The sky was bright with stars, the familiar milk stain of the galaxy arcing overhead. He pointed upward and they both stood there for a few beats, staring at the glittering, velvet sky. 

“Is that how it all started for you, too?” he asked Starbuck.

She nodded. 

“Sure is. Lying on my back looking at the stars, when I was a kid. Wanting to fly there. And hoping to kick some serious Cylon ass.”

“You might have to wait awhile for that,” Lee mocked gently. “My father’s been waiting for thirty-four years, not a frakking Cylon to be seen.”

“I’m ready for whenever they turn up,” Starbuck laughed. “Until that frakking happens, let’s go have some fun.”

Fun, in Starbuck talk, meant staggering to another, smaller, seedier bar for a couple more drinks of some vile liquor that she swore would mean they’d be barely hungover the next morning. When a greasy-looking freighter pilot grabbed hold of her ass after the second shot, she turned and clocked him precisely between the eyes, and Lee found himself in the middle of a bar brawl. He had the presence of mind to throw a couple of punches and clear a way out, and he dragged Starbuck with him – along with the precious firewhiskey – before they got caught into it. 

They stumbled out and ran up the street hand in hand, until Starbuck gasped and stopped, leaning one hand against a wall to prop herself up as she bent double catching her breath. She was laughing when she straightened up again.

“I can’t believe we’ve just started a frakking brawl and ducked out.”

“Maybe you’re lucky I was there.”

“Maybe I was. The question is,” and she stopped to lick her lips, “are _you_ lucky?”

“Maybe I am,” he said, and he let his hand slip from hers and rest on her waist. His sentient brain appeared to have checked out for the night and left his hormones in charge.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she teased. 

“I think so.”

His hand slid to the top of her thigh.

“I don’t think you do, Ensign Adama. I believe this,” and she inclined her chin towards his hand, “might be moving towards violating frat regs.”

“It’s worse,” he rasped. “I’m your commanding officer.”

“Exactly. That’s why I can’t really see you going along with this. _Sir_.”

“Maybe you have no idea what you’re playing with,” Lee replied dangerously, and she tensed up under his hand. 

“You’re not a rule breaker, Apollo.”

“It’s Bacchanalia.”

“Maybe, but…” She shook her head. “I don’t buy it.”

“Why not?” he whispered, closing the small gap between them and pressing his erection against her, making her shudder. 

She moaned softly and tilted her hips for better contact, the heat of her groin meeting his, and Lee had to exert all his willpower not to just rut against her until he came with a groan.

“It’s Bacchanalia, Starbuck,” he repeated.

“You sure you can deal with this, Apollo? Because I’m not sure you have the balls for it.”

Her look was pure challenge, and it made his cock twitch in anticipation.

“I beg to differ.” 

He ground his hips against hers slowly and was gratified when he felt her follow the movement, unwilling to break the contact. 

“Besides, you sure as frak want this, and who am I to deny a beautiful woman, tonight of all nights…”

His fingers were tracing the stitching of her back pocket, featherlight as they neared her inner thigh, and were rewarded with a slight trembling. She _did_ want this, there was no doubt about it, and the thought that maybe he was about to get his obsession rewarded made him giddy. 

Reaching over, he wrapped his hand around her inner thigh, fingers running up between her legs, and caressed her lightly through her BDUs as she arched against him. 

“Holy frak…” she whispered, trailing off with a sigh.

“You like this? You like it when I touch you?” His voice sounded harsh to his ears as his index finger neared her clit, pressing the seam of her pants against it to increase the friction.

Starbuck moaned again –a long, low sound that hit him right in the groin – pure animal reaction all the way. 

“Gods almighty, Lee,” she gasped as he circled her nub, picking up a steady rhythm. The unexpected use of his name surprised and gratified him; sometimes he wondered if she even knew it, or cared. 

_Kara_. 

He didn’t usually let himself think of her in that way, even though he kept fantasizing about her full breasts; about her muscled legs crossed behind his back; about her mouth, her godsgiven lips wrapped around his cock; and now about the way she breathed out his name on the verge of coming. 

“Say my name again,” he urged her, rubbing harder, and the noise she made as she rode his hand to climax, a long exhalation, _Leeeee-aah_ , was the most erotic sound he had ever heard. His cock was painfully hard; if she touched him now he might very well come in _his_ pants.

They had to get out of the street or he’d make an exhibition of himself –and first night of Bacchanalia or not, he wasn’t ready to perform for the enjoyment of passersby. But, Hades, he wanted to frak her senseless, and soon. 

“Your place or mine,” he murmured in her ear, flicking his tongue around the shell and making her shiver. 

“Gods, Lee, which is nearest?’ she panted, her head lolling back against the wall. 

Her eyes were shining, her mouth wet and red and inviting, and she just exuded sex and hormones and craziness. Lee leaned in and kissed her, his lips closing on hers eagerly, tongue dipping in and savoring her taste, her soft warmth. 

Her hand wandered down, fingertips like velvet brushing past his erection, and Lee stiffened.

“Mine. Now,” he ordered, and he felt her move against him in assent. 

The walk home – more of a stagger, if he was honest – was a blur; all Lee could focus on Kara’s arm around his waist, her body snug against his, her warm breath on his neck. There was a voice in his head droning on about how this was a bad idea; how they were breaking several frat regs; how he’d regret it in the morning; but he knew that no matter what, he wouldn’t, that all he wanted was to lay her on his bed and plunder her body mercilessly.

They had to stop a few times. Once, for Kara to thread her hands through his hair and pull his mouth to hers in a desperate kiss that almost tripped Lee over. Another when he pushed her against a lamppost and ran his hands under her shirts, threatening to strip her then and there. Finally they made it to his barracks, and to his door, where Kara leaned against the wall and breathed heavily while he struggled with the key.

“All the blood left your brain, flyboy?” she teased, and then the door opened and he shoved her through, tumbling to the floor after her. He just had the presence of mind to kick the door shut before he attacked her neck and began to pull her clothes off. He wanted to get her naked, see the glorious body he’d seen only glimpse of, that he’d been fantasizing about for too long. 

When he freed her breasts from her bra he stopped and stared at them, long enough that Kara raised her head and smirked at him. 

“Been a while?” she inquired, and Lee grinned and buried his face in her cleavage before latching onto one nipple and teasing it to a hard peak, until she was reduced to short, shallow breaths. As he let go of it with a pop, and eyed the other one speculatively, Kara rolled under him and toppled him abruptly onto his back. She straddled his chest and beamed triumphantly at him, her round, rosy-tipped breasts swinging above him. She was magnificent. 

She leaned down, her dog tags dangling just above his nose, and slowly slid down his body, not stopping until her knees were either side of his calves, and her face was hovering above his straining cock, trapped in layers of fabric. Her hot breath was making him squirm in anticipation. 

“I think you deserve a little fun, Lee. All work and no play…” she murmured, and ran the tip of her very pink tongue along her upper lip. “You’re not one of these one-shot wonders, are you?” 

“Try me.” 

He closed his eyes and felt her hands getting hold of him, cool air onto his liberated dick and then the most exquisite sensation as her lips descended on him. It was one of his favorite fantasies; one he suspected he shared with more than a few cadets, because no one could look at that mouth and not imagine it wrapped around a cock; but the reality was infinitely better than anything he’d imagined. 

She started slow and tantalizing, building him up and teasing until he could hardly stand it, then giving him the hot wet suction he craved; again and again. 

Through slitted eyes he looked at her, how she took all of him in her mouth and down her throat, massaging his length with her tongue, the faintest hint of teeth scraping against the head as she pulled off and caught him staring. She kept their gazes locked when she descended on him again, sucking steadily, one hand teasing his balls. The sight of her combined with the incredible sensations her mouth was delivering was enough to send him over the edge. He felt his orgasm build inexorably and attempted to warn her.

“Kara, I…”

She raised her eyebrows at him but kept going until his hips bucked up and he erupted in that welcoming mouth with an unexpected shout, his senses flooding with pleasure and blessed release. 

When she let go of his softening cock, she made an exaggerated show of licking her lips and savoring the taste of him, but she couldn’t keep up the porno pretence and burst out laughing. 

“Are you laughing at me?” he asked, mock-offended, and she shook her head so he pulled her down to him and kissed her thoroughly. When they were both out of breath he loosened his grip. 

“How about we give my bed a go? I hear it’s softer than the floor.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“I had to make sure your intentions were honorable first.”

She poked him in the ribs at that and they made it to the bed giggling and tickling each other. Lee tripped over his pants, still at half-mast and pulled her down with him, trapping her securely under his bulk. 

“I think you’re wearing far too much clothing,” he announced seriously. 

“You should talk – you still have your tanks on!”

“That’s not the point.”

“So, what is the point?”

“The point is, you’re not naked yet and this has to change. Now.”

 

*********************

Next thing she knew, Kara’s fatigues were being efficiently stripped off her, buttons popped open and waistband yanked down, Lee only pausing to gawp at the tiny lace panties she’d worn tonight instead of her regulation gray underwear. Good call. 

“That’s a nice surprise,” he breathed out. 

“Just because I don’t simper doesn’t mean I’m not a girl, Lee.”

“I think I’m having an epiphany here.”

She giggled. 

“Really?”

Instead of answering her, he pulled off her pants and the scrap of lace – carefully, she noted with approval, because it had cost more than all the rest of her underwear put together – and blew gently over her exposed sex, tickling her, before touching the tip of his tongue to her clit. 

“Oh my gods, Lee!” she moaned. 

He repeated the brief caress, three, four, five times, watching as her legs parted for him. She couldn’t believe how intent he looked, his clear blue eyes focused on her cunt, mouth half-open. He was beautiful, and the hottest thing she’d ever seen, and she could swear she was wetter than she’d ever been with anyone. 

“Hades, Kara, you’re just frakking amazing,” he said in a strangled voice. 

She was so turned on, still, from getting him off that when sank his face into her she found herself on the brink of coming almost instantly. His lips and tongue were parting and probing and pleasuring her, triggering wave after wave of ecstasy, and her hips were rolling of their own volition, following his mouth. 

_Gods_ but he knew how to use it. 

He was also a frakking tease, bringing her to the edge and then leaving her there in suspended animation, taut as a bowstring and craving release. She whimpered in frustration.

“You want something, Kara?” He sounded as turned on as she felt.

“Please, Lee?”

“Please what?”

_Frakker._

“Please keep doing that. Please don’t leave me hanging.”

“You want to come for me?”

She moaned. Gods _yes_ , she wanted to come. 

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Lee, I want to come.”

“And?”

“ _Please_ Lee? Please. Suck me off, lick me, frak me… just don’t leave me like this or…” 

She trailed off as his tongue touched her again, setting off fireworks. He sucked her clit hard, rolling it in his mouth, and slipped a couple of fingers into her, hooking them into her sweet spot, and that was it – all the coiled tension in her belly unraveled into a powerful orgasm that had her arching over the bed and crying out as the spasms racked her. 

When her shudders had finally calmed down enough to allow her to think again, she opened an eye to find Lee staring at her. He wore the smug smile of the successful lover. If she could have been bothered, she’d have wiped it off his face – but she was too bonelessly relaxed, too happy to feel any anger. Her body felt grateful for his ministrations, and who was she to complain?

She reached out and brushed his mouth with the tips of her fingers, watched as he licked them, triggering another spike of desire in her still-fluttering cunt. 

“You’re _good_.” 

His grin widened. 

“So are you.” 

It was her turn to look smug. 

“I know.” 

“Really? Because I feel like I could do with a little help here…”

“Well you could start by taking off all these unnecessary clothes,” she suggested.

Much to her delight, Lee shrugged and pushed himself off the bed, hiking up his BDUs to his hips. 

“You want a striptease?”

Kara bit her lip and squealed in glee. “Hell yeah!” 

If there was a sight more attractive than that of a horny Lee, standing there with his tanks rucked up his chest, pants open and low slung, his erection peeking out, hair messed up and mouth still wet with her juices, Kara didn’t know what it was. She raised herself on her elbows to get a better view. 

He began slowly, peeling off his tanks to reveal a gloriously taut and flat stomach, a chest dusted with light hair, nipples pebble-hard, and pulling them off his frankly stunning shoulders and arms. She had to admit to herself that she’d lusted after those biceps from the very first time she’d seen him. 

“Like what you see?” he asked, and she nodded, eyes bright. No point in denying the obvious. “Ready for the main attraction?”

Bending down, he hooked two fingers into his waistband and pulled his fatigues and his briefs down in one go, his cock bobbing proudly, hard and full again. Kara licked her lips. She wanted him inside her, that swollen purple head slamming into her achingly hot cunt, and she wanted it right away. 

Lee spun around for her, allowing her to admire the sculpted planes of his back as well as his tight ass, and Kara thought to herself that few callsigns could have suited their owner better. Godlike barely did him justice. 

“Never thought you’d be that much of an exhibitionist,” she said. “Although the gods know you have what it takes.”

Gratifyingly, she saw a blush spreading on his cheeks. Then he leaned over her, planting a hand either side of her head, his cock brushing against the top of her thigh, and proceeded to give her a very dirty, very wet, very hot kiss. It ignited all manner of nerve endings, and within a couple of minutes she was writhing against him, pressing her cunt to his stone-hard erection, all but begging for him to frak her already.

There was no need for words. She wrapped her legs around his waist, opening herself to him, and Lee found the right angle to slip his hot hard length into her with one long, delicious thrust, tearing another deep moan from her throat. He drove into her, slowly at first, filling her with his cock until she thought she was going to explode from that feeling alone. They were still kissing, tongues exploring each other’s mouth, licking teeth and lips, and as the urgency grew the kisses became less tender and more brutal, matching the growing frenzy of their jerking hips. 

Soon Lee had his mouth latched to Kara’s neck, biting her while his cock pistoned in and out of her; hitting her clit with virtually ever thrust. She shivered and cursed, long strings of expletives broken only when she moaned his name. Her nails dug into his ass, pulling him in even tighter. 

Her climax hit her like a freighter, and she let out a scream that turned into a sob as her whole body sagged with post-orgasmic relief. She could feel his cock pulsing inside her as he hissed her name into her ear.

When they disentangled themselves from each other, after a long pause, Kara felt her neck burn. She touched her hand to it and brought it back spotted with red. She waved the fingers at Lee, who grimaced in apology. 

“Sorry. I guess… I got carried away. Besides,” he said while feeling his own backside gingerly, “I bet there’s blood under your fingernails.” There wasn’t, but the red crescent marks on his ass were deep and would take time to heal. Bacchanalian battle scars – something to remember their tryst by. Their one-off, couldn’t-possibly-happen-ever-again, Dionysian tryst. As her heartbeat returned to normal, the little voice in her head telling her this was a terrible idea got louder. 

Evidently it had a twin in Lee’s brain, because he rolled off the bed without a word and headed for a door that presumably led to his private bathroom. 

“Nice quarters,” she called out to him before he closed the door. It made a change from the cramped, shared bathrooms they had in dorms, although she was thankful she at least had the privacy of a single. His room was positively luxurious compared to hers – bigger bed; softer mattress; at least twice the floor space, not counting the head, and it looked even larger on account of the preternatural tidiness that reigned throughout. Where her room was strewn with dirty laundry, course books and pilot kit, his was bare; a few papers stacked on the desk by the window; the only scattered clothes the ones they’d ripped off each other earlier. 

“Pays to be squadron leader,” he said when he came out. He’d splashed water onto his face, and while it didn’t wash off the freshly-frakked look, he definitely seemed a little more sober and more uncomfortable than earlier. 

She decided to put him out of his misery.

“I should get going. It was fun and all, but I need my beauty sleep. And you’re going to have a bitch of a hangover tomorrow, with what you’ve been drinking.”

“What?” he protested. “I drank the same as you did – less, actually, because I’m pretty sure you were three sheets to the wind already when I met you.”

“Yes, but I’m used to it, and you’re just an occasional drinker.”

“Besides, I thought that foul stuff you got us when we were in that bar, you know, the one where you started the next Cylon war, wasn’t that supposed to get rid of hangovers?”

Kara frowned. 

“Did I make you drink Geminese herb cordial? Frak, I’d forgotten about that. You’re right, that might help dull the worst of the pain.”

“Great – glad it was worth swallowing that muck.”

“Ah, but we got to fight some assholes, and that makes up for it.” 

She remembered it all now, how the guy who’d tried to grope her went down with her first punch; Lee’s manic glint as he clocked two of the guy’s companions before grabbing her wrist and making for the door; the fit of giggles that had possessed her once she’d stopped running. 

That, and what happened immediately after. She could see in Lee’s eyes that he was remembering the exact same thing. 

Time to clean up, nip this in the bud, and call it a night. 

“Bacchanalia amnesty?” she said, with a little smile. 

Lee sighed. 

“Yeah. Amnesty. It was… great, actually,” he said, looking at her directly. “But it can’t…”

“No,” she agreed. 

Even though it _had_ been great, and the best frakking sex she’d had since, well, ever. But it hadn’t gotten rid of her pesky fixation on Lee, just made it infinitely worse. No _way_ she could allow this. No way the Fleet would allow this, either, even among cadets, when he was her commanding officer and she was barely nineteen. 

They both dressed in silence, then Lee came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her back and rested his cheek on her hair. 

“Friends?”

She nodded against him. 

“Friends.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it would do for now.

********************

Kara’s standing on the gangway above the hangar deck when Lee’s Viper gets towed in, metal screeching against metal, a brutal whine that has everyone on deck grimacing, and Tyrol nearer tears. 

Balanced on the top step, she watches as the knuckledraggers push a ladder to the cockpit and run up to help free Lee from the twisted hull of his Viper. It looks barely fixable from here, and she suddenly realizes quite how lucky he is to have survived. 

Lee himself must be thinking the same, because when he hoists himself out of his seat, holding his helmet in one hand, he just stares in shock at the torn metal of his wing; the black streaks burned into the body of his ship; the crushed engine. He's limping when he finally makes it down to the ground, and Kara is there to hold out her arm. 

Lee grabs it and pulls her into an embrace, hugging her fiercely.

“Thanks for saving my ass.”

“Again,” she prompts, trying to keep her voice even. Gods, she couldn’t have lived if he’d died. 

“Again,” he repeats, and he tightens his grip. Anymore and she will choke. She doesn’t care. 

“I knew you couldn’t be dead,” she whispers, and he nods against her. 

“I knew you’d find me.”

“I’ll take you to get checked by Cottle,” she says, but what she really means is _come with me now, out of here._

He stumbles next to her and she props him up with her shoulder, shaking her head at Jammer when he offers to help. She knows for a fact that Sickbay is overrun with casualties from the battle – that basestar cost blood – and that Lee won’t be missed for a while. She intends to make use of that time. 

Twenty paces down the next corridor she pauses by a hatch, looks at Lee. Darkening blue eyes look back at her. Heat flares at the base of her spine, pools in her loins. Gods, she wants him more now than ever, the fear of losing him having shocked her into awareness. She spins the hatch door, precedes him into a storage compartment, cold and empty, lit with a single, bleak, bluish spot over the center and turns towards him as he dogs the hatch carefully. 

Kara closes in on him, places her hands either side of his chiseled jaw – so beautiful, gods – and holds him there.

“I don’t want to lose you, Lee.”

She draws him closer, touches her lips to his stubbled jaw, a ghost of a caress that makes him shiver. He encircles both her wrists with one hand.

“Kara,” he exhales. 

They’re both high on adrenaline, on having cheated death one more time; their senses heightened by their close brush with oblivion. She turns her head a fraction, their lips brush together, shallow breaths merging, poised on the brink of surrender. 

There’s something of the fierce joy of survival in his kiss, when he crushes his lips to hers, and she allows herself to respond in kind for the first time since the night they never discuss. The night they never told Zak about. The night that – try as she might – she can’t stop fantasizing about, in her bunk when the tension and frustration overwhelm her and she brings herself off silently, knowing he’s only a curtain away. 

Gods, Zak forgive her. Zak, whom the gods loved most, who walks forever in the Elysian fields, forgive her. This time she can't let Lee go. She won't.

Their hands claw at each other with desperate desire, his hunger fueling her own as they struggle with their flight suits – Kara unfastening Lee’s efficiently but struggling to peel it off his shoulders; Lee meanwhile sliding both hands inside hers and over her breasts, making her gasp. 

The tempo picks up – somehow they’ve each managed to strip the other, and she’s pushed Lee against the wall, her mouth fused to his, her palm molded firmly to the front of his briefs, his erection hot and hard under her hand; his fingers have slipped past the negligible barrier of her underwear and are caressing her wet swollen flesh. Kara moans into his mouth when they delve inside her, hitting her just right.

“ _Yes…_ ” is all she says when she comes, shuddering against him.

Gods, she’s never come that quick with anyone, not even on her own, and the look of wonder in his eyes when he pulls away briefly to look at her makes her feel like a teenage girl, hot and tingly and embarrassed. 

“Been a while?” he says, a rogue twinkle in his eyes and she really ought to deck him but she prefers to retaliate in kind, so she wraps her hand around his cock, inside his shorts, and pumps it roughly a couple of times. He gets wise pretty quick, though, and stops her with one hand. 

“I want more,” he grunts, and she goes with it. 

Her underwear lies forgotten at her feet and Lee’s sliding down the wall, pulling her with him until he’s sitting up, legs out in front of him, and Kara’s straddling him. They tussle for a few seconds, adjusting their angle, and then she spreads herself open and lowers her body onto his, engulfing him in one fell swoop, and it feels so damn _good_ she has to pause for breath.

He won’t let her though, keeps pushing inside her, hips grinding against hers, merciless, and she’s already feeling the first tingles of her next climax starting like a smoldering fire about to burst into flames again. Lee fraks her straight through her orgasm, barely slowing down as she clenches around his cock, and to her amazement continues to thrust into her with the last dying aftershocks and beyond, rekindling her passion once more. 

“Oh my gods, Lee, you’re crazy,” she pants, but all she gets is a wicked grin. It’s half grimace, really, because he’s got to be hanging on by his fingernails, and she bets he hasn’t gotten laid since before the end of the world. 

Her third orgasm takes her by surprise, soreness and exhaustion notwithstanding, and washes over her like a tsunami, tearing obscenities and a long animal howl from her throat, enough for Lee finally to let go and explode inside her, with her, her name spilling from his lips as he comes. 

They cling to each other, waiting for their bodies to stop shaking, their heartbeats to slow back to something approaching normal, and she’s struggling to regain control of her brain, let alone her limbs. He feels so solid and warm in her arms, his smell familiar and reassuring, part sweat, part tylium exhaust, part just Lee; this is as close to perfect she’s ever felt with anyone. Closer than she ever felt with Zak, the gods forgive her. 

“I’m not waiting that long again,” Lee says in the crook of her neck, and she smiles.

“Me neither. You’re a crazy sonofabitch, but keep doing this and you can share my bunk anytime.”

“You’re going to have to learn to keep quiet,” he teases her.

She nods wearily. 

“Think I better shower before seeing Cottle?” he asks. 

She thinks about Lee stripping for the doctor, his hands slick with her juices, his mouth bruised with her kisses, and laughs. Makes a show of sniffing his chest and shaking her head.

“Hell yeah. Even if he kicks your ass for being so late. Otherwise he’ll kick _my_ ass for messing with an injured pilot.”

“He’d be right,” Lee says as he pushes himself up with difficulty. Once he’s standing over her, his tanks halfway up his chest, she notices the dark bruising along his side, blue and brown and mottled yellow, and she could kick herself for not seeing it sooner.

“Shit, Lee, this is worse than I thought. You shouldn’t have...”

He cuts her off. “I wanted to. And I’ve been through worse.”

“Haven’t frakked you through worse,” she says, smirking, but she feels a little guilty. Even though she knows she would have done the same; a busted knee or broken rib wouldn’t have stopped her today. 

“I’d frak you through anything, Kara,” he says, low, and she draws a sharp breath. 

This is what happiness feels like, she thinks. 

She hopes.


End file.
